(07-16) 11:45 PDT SAN FRANCISCO -- It's looking likely that San Francisco voters will get to weigh in on the redevelopment of an aging waterfront pier, whether the city should be barred from installing lights and artificial turf on Golden Gate Park soccer fields and whether the city should adopt a "balanced transportation" policy protecting motorists' interests.

Supporters of all three proposals turned in thousands of signatures Monday aimed at qualifying the measures for the November ballot.

The measures each need the signatures of 9,702 registered San Francisco voters to qualify for the election, which will take place Nov. 4.

Supporters of the $100 million redevelopment of Pier 70 in Dogpatch turned in 15,386 signatures. Their measure would clear the way for the rehabilitation of three historic buildings in 28 acres for office workers, retailers, artists and manufacturers - part of a larger development project that will eventually bring up to 2,000 new homes, including 600 affordable units, 9 acres of waterfront parks and an estimated 10,000 jobs to the area.

It's a noncontroversial project, but it has to go before voters because it would raise the height limits on the pier from 40 feet to 90 feet. Under Proposition B, approved by voters last month, any project on port property that exceeds existing height limits must be approved by the electorate.

Also Monday, a group of residents and environmentalists that for years have been fighting city plans to install lights and artificial turf at the Beach Chalet soccer fields in Golden Gate Park handed over about 15,000 signatures to the department of elections, said campaign spokeswoman Jean Barish.

It's not the only ballot measure that will ask voters to weigh in on the future of play fields: Mayor Ed Leeand a number of city supervisors last month announced their own initiative, designed to override the Golden Gate Park Athletic Fields Renovation Act. That measure contains a "poison pill" that would invalidate any conflicting ballot measure if the city's measure gets more votes.

The city's plans call for synthetic turf, expanded fields and a larger parking lot, field lights, benches for players, bleachers for 1,000 spectators, a barbecue area, community room and renovated bathrooms.

Then there's the group calling itself Restore Transportation Balance, which turned in 17,500 signatures for its proposed proposition to establish a nonbinding declaration of policy that would include prohibitions on charging at parking meters on Sundays, holidays and outside the hours of 9 a.m. to 6 p.m., putting new meters in neighborhoods without the consent of residents and merchants, freezing meter rates for five years and enforcing traffic laws "equally for everyone using San Francisco's streets and sidewalks."

- Marisa Lagos and Michael Cabanatuan

For the kids: San Francisco may have the smallest number of children per capita of any city in the country, but at least services for them will be well funded if a November ballot measure passes.

Mayor Ed Lee and all 11 supervisors are backing the Children and Families First initiative, and with a name like that we bet it will get the 50 percent-plus-one level of support it needs at the ballot box. The measure would renew the expiring children's fund and raise its funding level from three to four cents of every $100 in property taxes. Taxes wouldn't go up, just the slice of them dedicated to kids. It would continue for 25 years, at which point voters would have to renew the funding again.

The measure would also renew the Public Education Enrichment Fund, which gives city dollars to the school district in three pots: one for sports, libraries, arts and music; one for counselors and other support, and one for universal pre-school for 4-year-olds. The latter pot would shift to encompass kids ages 3 to 5.

- Heather Knight

Janitors get paid: San Francisco resident Jaime Reyes and his wife, Maria Alvarenga, are expecting their third child next week. On Monday, the couple, who both work as janitors, learned that they will receive a combined $8,000 from their former employer, who refused to provide the couple with medical insurance while they were working there.

The company, GMG Janitorial, was ordered to pay a total of $1.34 million to 275 current and former workers, many of them Latino immigrants, under a judgment finalized Monday. The case was originally brought by the city of San Francisco under the city's universal health care ordinance.

The order by Judge Marla J. Miller requires GMG Janitorial to pay the full amount of benefits owed to workers - in some cases up to $11,000 per employee. Under a 2006 San Francisco law, employers have to either offer most workers health insurance or pay around $2 an hour toward employees' health care.

San Francisco's Office of Labor Standards Enforcement brought the original case against the janitorial company several years ago, accusing GMG Janitorial of failing to make its required health care payments between 2008 and 2010. An administrative law judge agreed and ordered GMG to pay workers the full amount in 2012, but the company filed suit in Superior Court, alleging that the city had exceeded its authority and that the administrative law judge's findings were not supported by the evidence.

Miller "decisively rejected both contentions," according to City Attorney Dennis Herrera's office, which represented the OLSE in the case.

For workers such as Reyes, who testified in front of the administrative law judge, the court's decision is vindicating - and the settlement money couldn't come at a better time.